The Fall 2022 Manga Guide

Turning the Tables on the Seatmate Killer!

What's It About? 

Yuuki Narito's new seatmate Yui Takatsuki is the notorious “Seatmate Killer,” who strings guys along before breaking their hearts. But Yuuki's so clueless he might be immune to her charms! And so begins a fierce competition between two seatmates in this hilarious rom-com.

Turning the Tables on the Seatmate Killer! is based on Aresanzui (story) and Mizore Saba's (character design) light novel of the same name. The manga is drawn by Bachi Miyako, with English translation by Dan Luffey, and Azuki has released new chapters of the manga every week digitally since August.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

It's not easy to outrun your reputation. Just ask Yui Takatsuki – ever since her older sister suggested that she try studying manzai comedy as a way to get over her shyness, she's gotten a reputation as the seatmate killer, because her newly outgoing nature has made all the boys who sit next to her fall in love with her, only to be summarily rejected. The awful thing is that Yui genuinely just wanted to be friends, but now that she does have a crush on her new seatmate, Yuuki Narito, he thinks she's just playing some romantic game with all of the boys she sits next to, and she can't get her feelings across.

Not that Yuuki cares – he takes a very blasé approach to life, and nothing really gets through his outer shell. If anything, he seems to find Yui incredibly annoying, though in part that seems to be because he's used to trying to deal with Mina, his younger sister, a character who single-handedly ruined this book for me. Mina, for reasons I can't quite fathom, enjoys parading around in her underwear in front of her brother while making inappropriate comments. It doesn't actually look like she's got a crush on him, but somehow this became a thing with her, and both Yuuki and I really wish that it would just stop. It honestly doesn't add anything to the actual story, though it does bring some fanservice to an otherwise fairly wholesomely drawn book.

The bigger issue is that this purported comedy of misunderstandings just doesn't feel all that funny. Yui goes from being herself, to playing up her schtick when Yuuki calls her out on what he thinks she's doing, to suddenly being serious about liking him, and the transition honestly feels very out of the blue. Yuuki, meanwhile, is such a straight man that he seems to exist to be nothing more than that, with nary a trace of personality to be found. There's also the fact that this style of romantic comedy very rarely works for me, but I have to give this one credit where it's due: nothing about this book feels like mean humor, and that's a really pleasant surprise. I also like that the translation doesn't rely heavily (or at all) on supposedly up-to-the-minute slang, and both of those things make up for art that leans on the bobblehead side of things. If you like the teasing style of rom-coms, I suspect you'll enjoy this more than I did, but on the whole, it just feels a little bit bland.

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MrAJCosplay

Rating:

If there is one constant in life, it's that teenagers will forever be defined by the misunderstandings of their peers. Seatmate Killer is undoubtedly a confusing title at first glance, but what the volume turns out to be is something surprisingly simple and even rudimentary. The most interesting thing about this story is the fact that it does a good job of putting you in the same shoes as our point of view character, whose perspective of our heroine is constantly warped due to rumors and misunderstood actions. After that, we are made privy to why the heroine acts the way that she does and realize that she is probably the biggest victim in this entire story. That is pretty much where the intrigue ends.

The narrative feels rather confused at times, like it wants to be an innocent tale about two people overcoming misunderstandings while also creating a sort of competitive back-and-forth between our two leads. It feels like the story is trying very hard to just not have the characters communicate to each other even when there are ample opportunities for our characters to do so, and what we're left with is something that feels OK at best but kind of distracting and inconsistent at worst. There are other stories that do the competitive teasing storyline a lot better than this one, and while the end of this volume does offer potential for what's to come, I don't have a lot of confidence in the story's ability to properly follow that up.

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Jean-Karlo Lemus

Rating:

There are worse ideas for a romantic comedy than “a pair of idiots plays straight-chicken with each other”, and to its credit Turning the Tables on the Seatmate Killer! does have some good writing to it. But it might be a bit too insubstantial to stand on its own legs. It does a good job of setting up its lead duo: Yui is a playful little scamp who is very well-trained in manzai routines and isn't afraid to show it, and Yuuki is an obtuse introvert with resting bitch face. The two have a great deal of pathos behind their shenanigans: Yui's attempts at being funny are taken by too many people as flirting, which is a terrible position to be in. Yuuki, meanwhile, has plenty of skeletons in his closet, particularly having to be his family's rock after the death of his mother. Like I said, it's a good setup, but for some reason, it just doesn't click for me. The line between the leading duo trying to get a leg up on each other and them genuinely having feelings for each other is a bit too blurred, even though we can see plenty of emotion from our leads in the background. For now, the setup works but it desperately needs a shot in the arm.

With that said, there's nothing else that's particularly bad about the series, just insubstantial. About the worst part is Yuuki's little sister and her penchant for going around in her underwear—it's a running gag but just not a very funny one. Hopefully the next volume improves things, but as it is I can only give this manga a slight recommendation.